Blocking - How to contact the ball

There are so many ways to block I don't wanna try to cover it in one post. You can have a lot of objectives and outcomes with your block

- Kill spin

- Kill the speed

- Reflect or add speed

- Change the angle

- Change the timing

- Change the spin

- Change the rhythm

So many ways to go and ways to get there. I like the progression discussed earlier. The block can be defensive, or it can be offensive depending on your perspective.

I too struggle with forehand block against very heavy topspin attacks. I think it is a lot easier to turn the bat angle downwards on the backhand side.
Last night I was at a practice session and the coach (welsh international) said that I should try to come over and actually down on the ball with the forehand block. I think I am not doing this naturally because I am trained to play the forehand from down to up to brush the ball with topspin.
I also don't really have any counterattack against forehand topspin attack, only counter looping from way back off the table which is not the same thing.

Now I look At the TTEdge video I notice that it is really deceptive. At normal speed his overall movement looks like a forehand topspin with the bat moving from down to up to brush the ball. However what he is actually doing on the block is to use the wrist through the hit to effectively flat bat slap the ball with a forward or even downward slap during the stroke. To me he is actually doing two things together here (1) playing a forehand block and (2) disguising it as a forehand counter loop. I wonder how helpful this is to the less advanced player. I think it takes a long time to learn to brush the ball and not slap it and so the mind says brush brush brush and it is a big challenge to incorporate a slap instead of a brush into the same type of movement. Perhaps it is better to learn the slap block as a distinctly separate stroke before trying to disguise it by incorporating into a full forehand loop type of action ?

But this is interesting stuff to experiment with when next on the tables. I did 6 hours yesterday (a four hour camp run by Otilia Badescu) and two hours practice) so I am a bit stiff today

SpinQuark said:

I too struggle with forehand block against very heavy topspin attacks. I think it is a lot easier to turn the bat angle downwards on the backhand side.
Last night I was at a practice session and the coach (welsh international) said that I should try to come over and actually down on the ball with the forehand block. I think I am not doing this naturally because I am trained to play the forehand from down to up to brush the ball with topspin.
I also don't really have any counterattack against forehand topspin attack, only counter looping from way back off the table which is not the same thing.

Now I look At the TTEdge video I notice that it is really deceptive. At normal speed his overall movement looks like a forehand topspin with the bat moving from down to up to brush the ball. However what he is actually doing on the block is to use the wrist through the hit to effectively flat bat slap the ball with a forward or even downward slap during the stroke. To me he is actually doing two things together here (1) playing a forehand block and (2) disguising it as a forehand counter loop. I wonder how helpful this is to the less advanced player. I think it takes a long time to learn to brush the ball and not slap it and so the mind says brush brush brush and it is a big challenge to incorporate a slap instead of a brush into the same type of movement. Perhaps it is better to learn the slap block as a distinctly separate stroke before trying to disguise it by incorporating into a full forehand loop type of action ?

But this is interesting stuff to experiment with when next on the tables. I did 6 hours yesterday (a four hour camp run by Otilia Badescu) and two hours practice) so I am a bit stiff today

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I don't see any disguise at all - I think you are overthinking this. His follow through is part of the full motion for his stroke - it's one of the things that people who focus only on contact get wrong about stroke theory. A different follow through often indicates a different stroke because the follow through is part of the stroke. In fact, one of the ways I change my looping angle is to change my follow through angle at the forehead.

The wrist turn is the coming over the ball part. The main point is that you need to build this motion into your counterhit and keep your counterhit fairly spinless (flat and no lifting motion) if you want your block, which will be influenced by it, to work. The wrist turn is imperceptible on the block, but it is obvious on the trained counterhit. Pro players do this instinctively and have this training, but beginners who do not build all kinds of bad counterhit motions, some of which are half-baked topspins. The beginners struggle because they were never trained to have this wrist motion.

IT helps if you make a strong distinction between your counterhit and topspin. This was one of the fixes that Brett made that helped me tremendously with my game.

OK. Well whether you call it disguise or not, there is a slapping with the wrist going on during the shot which is totally different to the brushing of topspin.

I have a team mate who is incredibly good at counter hitting topspin attacks. He always seems to hit the counter attack incredibly hard and there is that very obvious flat bat slapping sound when he hits it. The ball travels back at high velocity and he almost always wins the point. It almost looks as though he is swatting a fly.

Maybe this is just me and some misunderstandings I have had. When I was a kid I used to play with my Dad who was a county junior champion at 17. In those days it was pimple rubber and no sponge and the counter attack was really just playing an ordinary forehand attack against a forehand attack, rather than the alternative of a chop. Since I started again 5 years ago I have had to learn today's technique of topspin brushing using smooth sponge rubbers. Therefore I have continued to think of counter hitting essentially as counter looping or topspin against topspin. However I think what is clear here is that there is counter looping, but then counter hitting is something totally different and involves slapping the ball with the wrist in a way I have never done, and been trained not to do, for 5 years. So I have a whole new thing to learn here which looks like it will most likely give me a much improved forehand block too.

My forehand block is OK against ordinary topspin, it is the really heavy loop spin that is a problem. There is so much spin it is very hard to turn your wrist far over on the forehand side, and the ball is trying to fly up off the bat so hard it is hard to keep it on the table. This also makes you very wary of contacting the ball with anything other than the lightest of touches. However clearly what I need to learn is to counter hit positively into the oncoming topspin shot forcing it back down into the table with an active wrist slap - a totally different technique to a passive block or "mini topspin" movement.

SpinQuark said:

OK. Well whether you call it disguise or not, there is a slapping with the wrist going on during the shot which is totally different to the brushing of topspin.

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Yes, this is part of the technique. I would just say you need to relax your wrist and turn your forearm inwards but people think about this stuff differently.

...
So I have a whole new thing to learn here which looks like it will most likely give me a much improved forehand block too.

My forehand block is OK against ordinary topspin, it is the really heavy loop spin that is a problem. There is so much spin it is very hard to turn your wrist far over on the forehand side, and the ball is trying to fly up off the bat so hard it is hard to keep it on the table. This also makes you very wary of contacting the ball with anything other than the lightest of touches. However clearly what I need to learn is to counter hit positively into the oncoming topspin shot forcing it back down into the table with an active wrist slap - a totally different technique to a passive block or "mini topspin" movement.

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The turn the wrist over advice is correct. The problem is that people don't do it instinctively unless it is built into their hitting stroke. And yes, flat hitting is should be separate from topspin. There are ways to combine then, but it is dangerous. You can play kick blocks or topspin counters as well. But those actively topspin the ball. PEople who try to block with a lifting motion that doesn't actively topspin the ball are getting the worst of both worlds - a bad block that doesn't have any real topspin to keep it consistent.

NextLevel said:

Master hitting the ball EXACTLY the way Jorgen Persson and Oh Sang Eu are doing it here in the first 30 seconds of the video - take the racket back, start at ball height and swing forwards (not upwards) into the ball. Finish at chest height at most (not head height), no matter whether you are standing straight or bending over. Lifting the ball with topspin is the one thing that ruins most forehand blocks. You need to come forward into and over the ball without imparting spin.

If you can swing this way, your forehand blocking issues will vanish mysteriously.

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correct me if im wrong
but the first minute of the video are just normal drives ye?
drives are just hitting the ball forward with not much spin on them

SpinQuark said:

I think it is a lot easier to turn the bat angle downwards on the backhand side.

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no. it's just easier not to back swing so much.

darnner123 said:

correct me if im wrong
but the first minute of the video are just normal drives ye?
drives are just hitting the ball forward with not much spin on them

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Yes, but the block is a shorter version of your drive/topspin. If you have a technically incorrect drive, you will often have a technically incorrect block unless you have trained the correct technique for a period.

okay thanks for clearing it up
some ppl are confusing me with all these terms haha

What NextLevel said all the way, all of it. The video of Persson and Oh is great. Their technique is so darn good.

You can tell when they do start looping, that the person blocking is doing the exact same thing as the counter hitting at the very beginning when they block the loop, except the stroke is a little smaller.

At Spin in NYC I have watched many coaches while they are coaching and I noticed that this is how they all seem to block. I used to just put my racket out and hope. And in between blocks I had no real reset and used to do something funny with my wrist to get ready for the next block.

When I started trying this method of blocking, I noticed first, because it is a stroke with an actual reset, I was much more and better ready to adjust to the next ball. Then, when I got very used to and solid doing this kind of block, I started noticing that if I wanted to increase the racket speed and take a slightly larger stroke, just a very small amount larger, but also faster, I had an automatic counter that I could make a fast counter hit without much spin, or I could brush over the ball and have a very effortless counterloop that had a lot of spin and pace that came almost entirely from precision contact and the power of the opponent's loop.

So, blocking in the way NextLevel is suggesting, sets you up to start learning how to counter against heavy topspin. My return vs an opponent's 3rd ball opening would be nowhere near as good as it is without this technique that NextLevel is explaining.

I have a feeling that really developing a high level counterhit and developing the technique of blocking with that same basic technique but a shorter stroke, would ultimately help a lot of players develop better countering skillz. So it always makes me wonder why so many players at my level are SO BAD at counterhitting and this kind of blocking.

UpSideDownCarl said:

I have a feeling that really developing a high level counterhit and developing the technique of blocking with that same basic technique but a shorter stroke, would ultimately help a lot of players develop better countering skillz. So it always makes me wonder why so many players at my level are SO BAD at counterhitting and this kind of blocking.

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Give adult players a break - they are so focused on getting the ball on the table that all things technical are largely secondary. And ask a typical coach in the US to explain why you need to counterhit that specific way and not this specific way and you will get largely answers that are as informative as patterned wallpaper.

All the stuff I am parroting was stuff I learned when I complained about my then-relatively-strong blocking game to Brett. I just struggled with heavy topspin, and then he explained to me the differences between blocking and looping and how too many people think that they are superficially similar when they are really different - flat vs brush, back to front vs down to up. To many counterhits have a significantly dangerous down to up element without real closed angles and topspin brush, and that is what causes the bad blocks. IF you are a TTEdge member, you will see all this stuff in the lesson on counterhitting.

In fact, many people who claim not to have similar problems on the backhand just haven't met the right level of topspin. IF you don't follow through with that wrist motion on the backhand side, you will just be blocking way too many balls off the table. At least I have that motion built in now, even if inconsistently, so I can use it consciously when the spin is too heavy.

Sorry to ask at a slight tangent, but how important is it to develop the circular type of forehand and recover and forehand motion shown in the video. I tend to recover by basically reversing the forehand so my bat, hand, arm, shoulder and torso all follow the same arc they took to play the forward stroke. In the video after the forward stroke the bat and arm drop straight back to waist level before commencing the next forward stroke creating a sort of circular stroke and recover, stroke and recover. Should I be worried and trying to retrain a correct recovery motion, or is this unimportant at my standard ?

recovering the way you are is good when you are learning to get the reset position right. the circular motion happens when you relax after each stroke and get back into the reset position with as little effort as possible. it's just the next phase after you start getting the reset position right each time without even thinking about it.

izra said:

recovering the way you are is good when you are learning to get the reset position right. the circular motion happens when you relax after each stroke and get back into the reset position with as little effort as possible. it's just the next phase after you start getting the reset position right each time without even thinking about it.

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I agree.
All should realise that this is a knock-up. That is, the players are simply getting their eye in to relax before they play. The blocks here are what is generally known as a feed whereby the blocker is trying to keep the ball on the table for the attacker. If you ever block (feed) to an advanced player you too will feel like a champion blocker. I will block 50+ balls in a sequence as those guys can control their loops so well and place the ball so consistently even when they put in the bombs.

For a match situation you really have to re-read NL's posts.

SilentRain said:

I find blocking actively to be much easier and safer. If you block passively, your racket angle has to been quite closed and sometimes this might not be suitable for certain shots. With active, I can have a more open racket angle. I dont find active blocking agressive thou as I gently brush the topside of the ball rather than going after it.

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My coach calls this "block-spin"

SpinQuark said:

Sorry to ask at a slight tangent, but how important is it to develop the circular type of forehand and recover and forehand motion shown in the video.

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I'm not going to comment on if you should do that or when you should do it. But I will tell you what is valuable about it so you can decide for yourself.

The first part of the recovery is down through the center, the midline. What that does is, it makes it so you are much more ready to switch to backhand if you need to. It might not matter as much in this kind of drill where the ball is supposed to go crosscourt. But if you have the midline trained as part of your reset, you will be much better at switching and being set for both sides. So, ultimately, having that version of a reset trained into muscle memory is worthwhile. And when you are talking about muscle memory, I would actually say sooner is better than later. Because the longer you keep a habit that needs to be changed the harder it will be to change.

But you don't need that reset. It is just that that reset trained into muscle memory will make your switching more fluid and natural.

Be relaxed, and allow your arm to take the path of least resistance. You will notice that a back and forth reset is more effort than this oval shaped reset, so I find that when trying to be as relaxed as possible, it happens by itself as you avoid using muscle power.

I wish i could see a video demonstration of the explanation you have given. It seems very easy from the way you explain, but a video would help some more. Thanks.

i think this thread is really at the heart of how we can improve our game.
this basic warm up drill is actually something that any would be serious player should be able to do 'forever'
ttedge mentions 'good position' which i would like to expand on. Once you can imitate Persson and Oh at a gentle speed try and turn it into a counterhit fest varying placement by six to twelve inches maintaining an off the bounce rapid tempo. Those with poor position will find things breaking down because they stretch for the wide ones and allow themselves to be jammed on the middle ones. To solve this you learn to position yourself behind the line of the shot on every ball which for many players will take hours of practice, but will transform your game from having acquired the key skill of moving without thinking. It is not enough to have a correct idea of how to execute the forehand stroke if you can't move for every ball you cannot be said to have a truly good forehand. in a way its a pity that because Oh and Persson control the ball so well because that is what is missing from their example. It would be instructive to watch them doing a falkenberg pattern with the same stroke for instance

Aig_Ail said:

I wish i could see a video demonstration of the explanation you have given. It seems very easy from the way you explain, but a video would help some more. Thanks.

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perhaps the simplest example of block/counter topspin is the simple backhand counter and block between say chen meng and liu shew wen. note the rthymic circular backhand slightly brushing but sometimes punching more, but always the bat circling back to the ready position